SteveReynolds

You don't have to believe what I say, Vort, but it doesn't make it true or false. Anyone can look these things up and find out for themselves.

I'll grant you this: I cannot prove that none of them have seen him in all that time. Fine. But it should be far easier to prove that someone did at some point. And the fact remains that there is no evidence of that. To the contrary, even President Hinckley admitted explicitly that he had not seen Christ. Many others have documented their personal struggle with gaining a testimony. This is fact. The Gospel Principles change is perfectly in line with the historical record. They're just trying to temper our expectations.

Here, I'll throw you a bone, from the FAIR people: The problem is that it is vague enough to be take either way. You could probably dig up a handful of comparable statements if you tried. Now, I can understand the wisdom of not shouting it from the rooftops in this day and age. But these carefully worded statements are all pretty contemporary. As I said, before them, there has been nothing conclusive or official for at least a hundred years (give or take a decade).

He opposed it, and was open about it. That's the reality. You want evidence of your personal definition of "open opposition" (letter writing and the like) because you know that didn't happen. If the difference in semantics makes you feel like you've proven a point, more power to you.

I cannot prove a negative, but I promise you that you cannot prove otherwise. There is simply no record of it anywhere. Impressions in the mind or hearing the voice of the spirit do not count. Even things we categorize as "great revelations," such as the ending of the priesthood ban, are not associated with any actual visions of Christ. I'm not making this up. (Though I freely admit that "a hundred years" is just a round number because I am terrible with dates. Give or take a decade.) Now could there be one errant account here or there that I was not aware of? Sure, it's possible. I'm open to being wrong. But even one or two such accounts really doesn't change big picture. Also, you are not the judge of my testimony. To my knowledge, I have made no false statement. That I can still call myself a believing member is my business and a question of faith, and has nothing to do with my meeting your standards of what a member must believe.

This is merely semantics. "Openly oppose" does not exclusively mean the methods you mention. Besides, who was he going to write a letter to, himself? He did everything in his power to get the rest of the quorum to change the policy and was on the record as not believing it was doctrinal in public. What more do you want? You just don't want to believe it's true, so I guess no one is going to convince you.

No, it appears you are failing to understand the importance of the nuance. Members often assume that the prophets and apostles speak face-to-face with Christ. However, the admission that apostles are witnesses to the "name" of Christ only is significant because it acknowledges that none of them have seen him for at least a hundred years or more. Many of them are on record as saying so explicitly (not avoiding the question with the "some things are too sacred..." deflection) and even prophetic testimonies from various prophets over the last century amount to nothing more than a story of struggling and praying for years before coming to the realization that they "already knew." Also, regarding the Proclamation, if it were a revelation, they would have said so to begin with. It could have been canonized immediately. However, even as it gains traction among the membership, leadership is still uncomfortable calling it that because they know it was a document revised over and over with the participation of legal counsel, etc. "Proclamation" is the appropriate word.

On the contrary, polygamy was practiced for YEARS after the manifesto -- plural marriages continued to be solemnized by apostles for quite some time -- and it took a second manifest and a lot of effort to stamp it out. The church had a long tradition of hiding and minimizing the practice on the record and most members simply took the manifesto as another in a long line of attempts to appease the government. Much of the obedience rhetoric we face today is due to efforts to finally end polygamy. Also, the manifesto is a declaration. It's categorization as a "revelation" has grown over the years. I'm not sure why you don't accept my other examples -- Adam-God was part of the temple ceremony, even. How is that not an attempt to force something from the top-down? There are all kinds of commandments and prophetic counsel that we simply ignore today because it suits us. Let's not even get into things like J.S.'s descriptions of the men who live on the moon and dress like quakers, because those aren't commandments, but the phenomenon is the same. We ignore those aspects of the historical record because we don't like or believe them, so we reject them. Yet many things that were said in identical circumstances we revere as revelation. The only distinction between them is that we accept some and not others.

For anyone who doesn't believe the Hugh B. Brown story, it is widely known. It's even in his personal memoirs which you can buy on Amazon. Just to summarize, here is a quote from the afterword (by his grandson): He had many well-documented disagreements about this with senior church leaders, including Harold B. Lee and Joseph Fielding Smith.

I admit I'm highly skeptical that you read the link I provided, but no matter. The church has often been influenced by culture and the erroneous opinions of its leaders over the years. That is a fact, and even a passing familiarity with church history proves it. The church may well do what God wants, but that doesn't mean that everything the church does was prescribed by God. Tradition, culture, and mistakes abound. I fear for the faith of people that have not learned this because it can be very traumatizing to have one's idealized view of the church shattered. The membership is a check on the leadership. Membership acceptance or non-acceptance of what the prophet says or asks is what ultimately has the final say -- and there has been plenty of non-acceptance over the years, no matter what anyone would have you believe. Adam-God and Blood Atonement are the easy examples to cherry pick, but they aren't the only ones. Membership initially rejected the Word of Wisdom as well and it wasn't really enforced until the 1920s or so -- and its current incarnation is almost completely unrelated to the word in the D&C. It's more about cultural boundary markers than anything else these days. The temple ceremony has changed A LOT over the years, all in response to how the membership feels about certain elements. In the 90s they even did a survey to make those decisions. The church's stance on the bedroom activities between married couples, homosexuality, birth control, and evolution have all changed with the times. But you won't find a revelation anywhere dictating the changes, because there wasn't one. It's just the trickle-up effect of our cultural evolution. The church has even become cagey about things like calling the Proclamation on the Family a revelation -- they are very careful to make sure that it is never officially referred to as a revelation (Pres. Packer used the term a couple of years ago in conference and the printed version was careful to change "revelation" to "guide"). The new Gospel Principles book no longer calls the apostles and prophets "special witnesses of Christ," but "special witnesses of the name of Christ." You can drive a train through the difference that makes. I could go on, but I know everyone's going to jump on my case and ask for proof of every one of these, which I'm not going to provide. It's all easily accesible information and not hard to find.

This is simply not true and is easily falsifiable. Sometimes that is the Lord's method. Other times it isn't. See here for example.